Defending the importance of the
Ecumenical Movement, especially to those who oppose it, is always a great task.
Remaining stubborn in our divisions as a Christian people is not the way of
achieving love, friendship, communion with our co-believers. Nevertheless, how
may we achieve this great objective? What is the aim of the Ecumenical
Movement? Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, who has worked for decades on
Ecumenical Relations, explains the aim of Ecumenism, by remembering what late
Cardinal Suenens said, in regards to our topic, that ‘in order to unite, we
must first love one another; in order to love one another, we must first get to
know one another.’[1]
Metropolitan Kallistos comments
on the above phrase, explaining: ‘This process of getting to know one another –
slow and often disappointing - needs to
be carried out at many levels: through official dialogues and international
conferences, through contacts between local parishes, through the exchange of
theological students, and through the publication of books, whether learned or
popular. Yet perhaps more important than any of these is the cultivation of
what may be called “ecumenical friendships” – direct contacts face to face,
person to person, across church boundaries. Without a firm foundation in such
friendships all our other endeavours towards Christian reconciliation are in
danger of proving rootless, abstract and theoretical. . .’[2]
[1]
Ware, Kallistos, ‘Father Donald and the Orthodox Church,’ in Keller, David
(ed.), Boundless Grandeur – The Christian
Vision of A.M. Donald Allchin, (Eugene, Oregon, Pickwick Publications,
2015), p.23.
[2]
Ibid.
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